Archive for July, 2005

In a Los Angeles dominated by violent gangs and a corrupt LAPD Precinct, the dirty Officer Armando Sancho is haunted by his guilty since an innocent old man was accidentally killed in an operation with his also dirty partner Salim Adel. The Internal Affairs is pressing Sancho, who feels split between the loyalty to his mates and his conscience, and he has to make a statement at 6:00 PM. When his superiors Captain Spain and his Lieutenant assign the two cops for an operation dealing drugs apprehended by the police and stored as evidence with a powerful drug dealer, Sancho feels that something is wrong and they have been framed Read the rest of this entry »

Deerhaven has been burdened by disappearances for more than two decades and local officials have come up empty as no trace of the missing have ever been found. An eccentric psychiatrist with questionable credentials comes to town implicating the local mortician, Henry Parks. Claiming to be Henry’s former doctor from a facility where Henry had been institutionalized, Dr Read the rest of this entry »

Set in Chicago, ‘Boogeyman’ tells the haunting tale of a young man traumatized by memories of terrible events he experienced in his childhood bedroom and who, years later, reluctantly returns home to face his fears of a monstrous entity that could be real or merely a figment of his imagination. Read the rest of this entry »

Like Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown,” “L.A. Confidential” perfectly evokes a time and place. An engaging crime drama about corrupt cops set in the 1950’s, “L.A. Confidential” transports us to another era bathed in exquisite period detail. Read the rest of this entry »

In “The Tuxedo,” Chan plays a taxi driver who is recruited to be the chauffeur of a secret agent. Desiring everything that his new boss is and possesses, Jimmy Tong (Chan) is amazed to learn that most of the credit goes to a two-billion high tech suit that allows the wearer to defy gravity, defeat bad guys, and even dance. Read the rest of this entry »

Sumptuous to look at, the latest big screen incarnation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel “Les Miserables” is a handsome yet flawed production. Despite the film’s excellent cast and literate script, this version of “Les Miserables” seems constrained by it’s budget. Instead of being stirring, it’s complacent. Instead of being epic, it’s lean but not mean. Read the rest of this entry »

In Havana, Cuba in the late 1950’s, a wealthy family, one of whose sons is a prominent nightclub owner, is caught in the violent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Castro’s regime ultimately leads the nightclub owner to flee to New York. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago I saw a tight, thrilling, suspenseful 3-minute movie. Now someone has had the audacity to turn it into a two-hour coming attraction. The film is called “Arlington Road,” and unless you have been hiding in a cave the last three weeks, you know that it deals with a man who suspects that his neighbors may be more than they represent.Read the rest of this entry »

All is fair in love and war, but it’s the romance that really screws up things. Take the new World War II film “Enemy at the Gates.” Here’s a really gripping drama about two professional snipers that gets shot down by a meaningless love story. Read the rest of this entry »

In the cold, dark waters off North Korea a U.S. Navy fast attack submarine meets with a mysterious disaster – it’s attacked and nearly sunk by an ominous stealth submarine resulting in the deaths of the Executive Officer and the Engineering Officer Read the rest of this entry »

John Wayne had a busy year in 1962. He appeared in the epic war drama “The Longest Day,” the epic western “How the West Was Won,” the classic “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” and the African adventure “Hatari!.” Read the rest of this entry »

You remember the old nursery rhyme, the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout? Writer-director James Gunn, who gleefully resurrected George’s Romero’s zombie franchise with Dawn of the Dead, doesn’t have worms playing pinochle on snouts in Slither, but he does stack the cards against the characters. Read the rest of this entry »

Arthur Dent is a British everyman. When he finally meets his perfect woman he balks at her request to go some place and she is then stolen away from him by a man claiming to have his own spaceship arrives at the party. Arthur next finds that his home is to be demolished for a bypass Read the rest of this entry »

The blood-soaked tale of a Norse warrior’s battle against the great and murderous troll, Grendel. Heads will roll. Out of allegiance to the King Hrothgar, the much respected Lord of the Danes, Beowulf leads a troop of warriors across the sea to rid a village of the marauding monster Read the rest of this entry »

You can’t miss them. Every high school has them. They walk through the halls like royalty. They date star athletes, wear the homecoming crown, edit the yearbook, and always look perfect. They’re the high school clique with a stick up their collective butts, “Mean Girls,” plastic pretties who make life a social nightmare for those who grovel at their $200 shoes. Read the rest of this entry »